The invention relates to a device for filling shooting heads with molding materials, the device being provided with a filling assembly that comprises a storage hopper for the molding material, an outlet member for discharging the molding material into the shooting head, and a gate for closing the outlet member, the filling assembly being mounted on a machine frame for vertical movement so as to immerse the outlet member into the shooting head to be filled.
In the foundry practice, core shooting machines have been known for many years. For casting molded products, the foundry cores or molds are made in most cases as separate parts. They are combined and joined to each other to form a casting mold. Essential components of the core shooting machines are the so-called shooting heads with shooting plates accommodating the shooting nozzles. Molding sand, in particular core sand, i.e., a quartz sand previously compounded or coated with binding agents is supplied to the shooting heads under discussion, from which it is blown or shot under a very high air pressure into the respective molds through the nozzles arranged in the shooting plate.
Known from DE 41 28 952 C1 is a device of this type, which has however turned out to be problematic in practice to the extent that the filling device or the outlet pipe is immersed into the shooting head for filling same, regardless of the actual filling level of the shooting head. For example, if a shooting head is not properly emptied as a result of the shooting operation--for example, because of clogged shooting nozzles--or if the filling device has received too little molding material in a preceding filling process, molding material will be again supplied to the shooting head, regardless of the actual filling level therein. In any case, the known device does not allow, on the one hand, to take account of the actual filling level of the shooting head being filled, and, on the other hand, to fill the shooting head in a reproducible manner, while considering the filling level situation in the shooting head.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to improve and further develop a device for filling shooting heads of the type under discussion, so as to enable a reproducible filling of the shooting head with simple constructional means, while taking account of the actual filling level of the shooting head.